


Kith and Kin

by significantowl



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Holidays, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:11:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Gwaine goes home with Merlin for the holidays, and gets a little more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kith and Kin

**Author's Note:**

> For the gwaine_quest prompt "Modern AU - dinner at Hunith's, with Hunith meeting Merlin's new boyfriend for the first time and Gwaine keen to make a good impression," plus alba17's prompt "Gwaine goes home with Merlin for Christmas."

+

Fields rolled by, patchwork-white, broken by bare winter trees and snug farmhouses. When they'd boarded the train in London, Gwaine had made certain that Merlin took the seat by the window. He'd thought Merlin would enjoy watching his home draw closer and closer after so many months away. But Merlin didn't seem to be appreciating the scenery properly; he kept turning his head to sneak little glances at Gwaine.

"I've met more subtle men than you, you know," Gwaine told him eventually, after enduring the third sidelong look in under a minute.

Merlin snorted. "I could say the same." He shifted round to fully face Gwaine, causing their knees to knock together. "You've been jumpy since the border, and unless you've suddenly developed some fear of the Welsh that I need to know about, I'm going to say you've never gone home with someone for the holidays before." He paused. "You never mentioned that."

"That's a big leap you're taking there," Gwaine said. "I could just be frightened of your mum."

"No-one's frightened of my mum," Merlin said. "Except me, sometimes."

"And anyone who looks at you wrong, I'm sure."

"There you go," Merlin said, threading his long legs between Gwaine's crossed ankles, and giving him the warm, sweet smile that had started all this in the first place. "Like you could ever do that."

 

+

 

The station was a small, low-lying sea of light in the midst of hilly pastureland. It was tiny, just a platform, two benches, and a locked-down office, all completely deserted in the dark of early evening. Gwaine squinted at the sign, and decided not to bother trying to pronounce the name it bore, not even in his head.

Holding their bags, they slip-slided their way onto the platform, Gwaine catching Merlin twice before he could fall on the icy pavement. "I'm supposed to ring Mum to come get us," Merlin said, hooking his arm through Gwaine's for balance. "But we could walk. It's a mile, maybe."

A mile's walk at night in the snow was a far more attractive option to Gwaine than ten minutes of waiting on a deserted platform. He'd had enough of sitting while on the train, hours and hours of it. Far too easy for things - like nerves - to find you when you were still, far too easy for them to worm their way in and ruin something good. 

"Walking through a winter wonderland it is," Gwaine said, already relishing the feeling of being in motion, leg muscles stretching, cold air pushing through his lungs. And the cold would never be uncomfortable - it would be exactly what he wanted it to be and no more, a pleasant bite on a starry night. Because Merlin was with him, and Gwaine was never too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry with Merlin at his side.

That wasn't sappiness, either. That was fact.

They left the station behind, walking where the going was easiest, through the tyre-tracks furrowing the single-lane road. No need to slog through the steeper drifts at the side; they had the night to themselves, and the roar of any vehicle that did come would offer warning to spare. 

Gwaine had forgot the truth of a midwinter sky, the arching, infinite blackness pierced by pinpricks of sharp, twinkling light. He'd grown used to the sodium-yellow haze of London, where the night never surrounded you because the city had shouldered it aside to do the job instead. Here, the earth rose up to meet the heavens in craggy peaks, and the sky simply shone on its efforts in a way that felt remote down in the valley. Gwaine wondered if it might feel welcoming up among the ridges. Like a touch, like a blessing.

"Now that I've seen it, I can't imagine you being from anywhere else," Gwaine near-whispered, as if that's what it took to make the words for Merlin's ears and Merlin's ears alone.

 

+

 

The track from the farm's main gate to Merlin's house was at least another quarter of a mile in itself, and all uphill. As much as Gwaine had wanted to walk, he was glad when they finally reached the front stoop. They'd been half-dragging each other up the slope, and here, Gwaine slipped away, letting Merlin have his hand free. He didn't really expect Merlin to pull out a key, and Merlin didn't; instead, he reached for the door, speaking a word in Welsh, and it swung inward at the press of his fingertips.

Gwaine had learned a few bits of Welsh himself over the past year. He'd wanted to, because it was a part of Merlin, and being able to say 'yes', or 'no', or to curse at a stuck vending machine in exactly the same way Merlin might was like having a little piece of Merlin to take around with him. (Now that was sappiness; Gwaine could admit it.) Gwaine knew his pronunciation wasn't particularly good, but he doubted that was the main reason that, unlike Merlin, he could only open locked doors with a key.

Merlin's mum met them in a cramped front hall, a greying sheepdog at her heels. She reached up to wrap her arms around Merlin in a tight, fierce hug before saying a word.

"I can't believe he made you walk from the station," Hunith said, letting Merlin go. She hugged Gwaine as well, less fiercely but infinitely warm. "I was going to collect you."

"Not to worry," Gwaine said, smiling. Like her son, she was immediately the sort of person it was impossible not to smile around. "Merlin kept me warm."

"Did he now?" Hunith's eyes went sharply to Merlin. Gwaine tried to replay his tone of voice in his head, wondering if he had sounded lascivious without having meant to be. Very possibly. It was just too easy to for him to do; both a talent and a curse, really.

Quickly, Merlin jumped in. "Good thing you made my scarf so long, Mum. And taught me how to share." It was undoubtedly his best approximation of Gwaine's flirty voice, which from Merlin's lips became something equal parts adorable and hot. It appeared to mollify Hunith, letting Gwaine know that she hadn't been upset because she'd misunderstood him, but the opposite - she'd understood him too well.

Which meant that if he didn't want to start a family row on the very first evening, Gwaine was going to have to get up on his toes and stay there.

"You two are hungry, I'm sure," Hunith said. "Go on, get yourselves settled while I finish up in the kitchen."

"I'll send Gwaine with you," Merlin said, grinning at Gwaine's reaction. "Just while I check that my room isn't any more incriminating than I remember it."

Gwaine raised an eyebrow, and Merlin's grin widened. "Put a knife in his hand, he's great at slicing things," Merlin advised, before thundering up the narrow staircase with their rucksacks in hand.

The only thing left to slice was a loaf of homemade bread cooling on the countertop, and Hunith gave Gwaine a serrated knife and set him to it. The heat from the bread warmed his fingertips, the inside was pillowy soft, and it smelled so good that Gwaine couldn't help sneaking a bite. He was chewing when the almighty thump sounded upstairs, which was probably a good thing, because it kept him from wondering aloud what the hell Merlin was up to; glancing at Hunith, he saw a tense, protective set to her shoulders that hadn't been there a moment before.

Swallowing, Gwaine told her how amazing her bread was, and watched the tension slip away like melt water from a thaw. 

When Gwaine went into Merlin's childhood room for the first time - after Merlin yelled down the stairs that he could come up, and Gwaine prompted his first laugh out of Hunith by saying, "I must go, your son bellows" - what drew his attention was not the Star Wars figures, or the little army men, or the wooden dragons, but the bed that was far, far too large for the room. As in physically, impossibly too large, jamming the night table up against the window in a way that had the wood buckling.

"Well," Gwaine said, staring. "Suppose your mum's not planning on having me sleep on the sofa, then."

"Suppose she isn't," Merlin said with a grin.

 

+

 

Supper was a thick, flavourful lamb stew and that delicious bread, eaten at a table in the kitchen, with the old dog - "Brac," Merlin said - sprawled hopeful and waiting by Gwaine's chair.

Merlin and his mother mostly talked about _The X Factor_ , his vowels rounding out to match hers, sounding more and more Welsh with every passing second. Hunith pulled Gwaine into the conversation by asking who he thought might win; it turned out to be the only direct question she posed to him throughout the entire meal. Not a single one about his job, his family, what he could offer her son, or how long he might be planning on sticking around to do it.

Gwaine had been bracing himself for all of those questions since London. Or, rather, for the disappointment that would grow in her eyes as he answered. His track record was not going to be any mother's favourite.

For a sudden, shameful moment Gwaine was glad that, if Merlin had been forced to grow up without a father, it had been because the man had died. If he'd abandoned them, been shiftless, been a rogue, Gwaine couldn't imagine mother or son having time for a man such as himself at all.

After supper, there was a sponge cake with a sweet golden crust. It was every bit as delicious as the bread - maybe more so - and Gwaine was starting his third piece when Hunith excused herself to feed the rest of the dogs outside.

"She knew you before she met you," Merlin said, looking pleased, nodding towards the cake hanging out of Gwaine's mouth. He got up from the table and opened a nearby cupboard, pulled out a bottle of whisky, and waved it at Gwaine. "Secret ingredient."

Gwaine swallowed down crumbs that suddenly threatened to stick in his throat. "You - you told her we met in a bar?"

"Of course," Merlin said. "And how I wanted to see you again, so I started working my way through Soho in concentric circles -"

"Until you found me in another bar," Gwaine finished for him. "Great."

The smile teasing at the corners of Merlin's mouth vanished. "I like to tell my mother the truth, Gwaine," he said. "I want her to like you, but I want her to like the person _I_ like, not some - some construct."

"I can tell you now, she'd prefer the myth," Gwaine said, and was both irritated and reassured by how quickly Merlin shrugged that away. He glanced toward the back door. There was no sign of Hunith, so he went on, while he had the chance, "Does telling your mother the truth sometimes mean making the truth fit what you need to tell her?"

"You could say that," Merlin said slowly. There was a pause. "For the record, I didn't. But _you_ can."

"So, for example now, if there was something you'd promised her you'd never tell anyone...."

"I'd never say a word." Merlin shrugged. "Can't help it if certain people are incredibly observant, though."

Gwaine threw back his head and laughed, thinking again how very subtle Merlin was _not_ \- he'd known Merlin maybe a month when Merlin had first _kept it from raining on them_ during a London downpour and tried to play it off as "walking between the drops." But then, Gwaine thought about how his mates had never asked why his boyfriend wore those weird colour-changing contact lenses, or kept lifting his right hand in that odd way, and Gwaine realised that Merlin actually deserved a lot more credit than Gwaine had been giving him.

Or maybe Merlin had been giving Gwaine a lot more credit than he'd ever thought himself due. Standing, Gwaine curled a hand at Merlin's waist and pulled him in close, a thank you and a promise. At Merlin's hum of happy surprise, Gwaine whispered, "So how many more times am I going to have conveniently leave the room tonight?"

"Depends on whether she's put lights on the Christmas tree yet or not," Merlin whispered back. "No way in hell am I doing that by hand."

 

+

 

They passed a few pleasant hours in front of the telly in the glow of a freshly-lit Christmas tree (following a strategic visit to the loo on Gwaine's part), with Merlin and Gwaine on the sofa, and Hunith knitting in her favourite chair. 

At ten-thirty Hunith went up to bed - well past her farmer's bedtime, she said - and Merlin started yawning soon after. Gwaine teased him for a bit about being back in the rhythms of country life so soon, although he knew it was probably more travel-weariness than anything. Gwaine could still feel the rock of the train in his own bones, and he was more than happy to follow Merlin upstairs and collapse onto his soft, over-large bed.

Merlin was, as ever, a sprawler, and by the time Gwaine had changed into his sleep bottoms, Merlin was lying on his stomach, feet and elbows staking out impressive swathes of territory. Gwaine slid in, hooking his left foot over Merlin's right and resting his chin on Merlin's upper arm.

Merlin squinted at him. "There's no central heating, you know. You're going to freeze without a shirt on."

"No, I won't."

"No, I guess you won't," Merlin agreed, unbending enough to curl a hand around Gwaine's shoulder.

Gwaine nestled into the pillow, warmth spreading over him from Merlin's touch, and let his mind drift. Who needed sugar plums when there were visions of lazy Christmas morning sex to be had? Sunlight streaming in through the curtains, Merlin's warm, enthusiastic body a perfect gift. They might not sleep like spoons, but Gwaine and Merlin loved to have sex like them - in the morning, Gwaine would roll against Merlin, letting Merlin's first waking thought be of Gwaine's hardness pressed to his hip. And Merlin would shift onto his side to thrust his arse back against Gwaine's cock, grinding slowly and insistently until one of them couldn't take it anymore and the pajama bottoms came off.

If Gwaine broke first, he'd try to turn his desperation into a tease, curl his fingers over Merlin's waistband and press his palm to Merlin's cock, holding it there until he felt the first twitch. Sometimes he would be able to manage it, sometimes he wouldn't be able to wait, and when Merlin's strong, lean thighs were finally on display, Gwaine would slick himself up and bury his cock in the tight heat between them. Merlin would squeeze and flex, and Gwaine would rock up, loving the warm, heavy drag of Merlin's balls at the tip of his cock. Gwaine would reach around and hold Merlin's cock like so, easing back the foreskin to rub his thumb up and over the head....

Gwaine slipped into sleep with his cock in his hand, interested, but not urgently so, ready and waiting for morning.

 

+

 

"Shut up, seriously, shut _up_ -"

Blearily, Gwaine cracked an eyelid. In the moonlight he could make out Merlin's shadowy form, stumbling about the room, a hand clutching his head. "If you wanted me to stop snoring, you could have just rolled me off my back," Gwaine suggested.

Merlin froze. "Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you. Just have to - do something. I'll be right back."

"Something important?"

"Not really." Merlin's hand was on the doorknob, and he was wearing his coat. Gwaine was alert enough to make it out, now, thrown on haphazardly above Merlin's sleep clothes. 

"Something so unimportant that you're rushing out into the snow without your shoes?"

Merlin looked down. "Shit." Then, voice rising, "You really don't have to be so loud, you're making it hard to think," he said, drilling his head back against the door, hard enough to make Gwaine launch himself from the bed, blankets twisting furiously about his legs. He managed to stay upright, though, and cradled his hands around Merlin's skull, stilling him before Merlin even seemed to realise he was there.

Merlin's eyes flickered over Gwaine's face - hard to tell in the dark, but Gwaine thought they were brighter than they should be - and, exhaling, he lowered his forehead to Gwaine's. "This is one of those things I'm not allowed to tell anyone who hasn't put a ring on my finger," he whispered.

 _So that's what it takes,_ Gwaine thought, and took a moment to enjoy the true discovery: no sudden dread knocking at his chest, no itch in his feet. Although perhaps, as those feet had brought him here to stand in a boyfriend's childhood bedroom for the first time in his life, that wasn't any kind of discovery at all. "You know I'll follow you," Gwaine whispered back.

Merlin's smile dimpled his cheeks. "Keep up," he said, and turned for the door.

After Gwaine reminded Merlin once more of the importance of shoes, they tiptoed through the house and out the back door. There, Gwaine half-expected Merlin to break into some sheepdog-quieting Welsh, but the dogs had made themselves scarce. "Should I follow you at a distance?" he asked quietly. "In case your mother happens to look out the window?"

"Oh, good point." Merlin raised his hand, and behind them, the fallen snow lifted to become a gently swirling cloud of white, obscuring most of Gwaine's view of the house. "There now. We have to go up to the corner field."

Gwaine sighed at the word 'up', but trudged gamely onward. From the way Merlin kept muttering things like "I'm on the way, aren't I?" they were off to meet someone, but who would choose a snowy field in the dead of night - and send mental messages about it, apparently - was beyond Gwaine. The only bloody thing he knew for certain was that it wasn't Father Christmas, because it _couldn't_ be if Gwaine was going to be able to continue his life as a functioning adult come morning.

There was nothing to see in the corner field; just an empty hillside, not even a single lonely sheep. Merlin left Gwaine's side, striding forward, calling out to the sky in a voice that echoed back from the ancient peaks and reverberated through Gwaine's bones. Gwaine had never known Merlin's voice could _do_ that, go so deep, and though he couldn't understand what he was saying the clear command in every word made Gwaine shiver. The language was nothing Gwaine recognised; it didn't sound like Welsh, it didn't even sound human. 

Gwaine was just thinking that last thought was ridiculously Harry Potter, when something came.

The noise it made when it landed was like a building falling, and the wind battered at Gwaine in its wake. Gwaine managed to keep his footing - it wasn't easy - while his attention was hopelessly divided between the hulking great _dragon_ and Merlin. Merlin, who stood there tall and self-possessed, shoulders squared and strong, so much _authority_ in every inch of him that Gwaine had a feeling his next sex daydream might take a new direction entirely.

When Merlin turned to Gwaine, there was a flash of worry in his expression. "Ah. You said you were ready to meet my family."

"I am," Gwaine assured him. He looked up at the dragon, so large and so close he could only see him in parts; the long slope of his nose, the glint of a tooth, one massive, yellow eye. "Hello," he called, realising a second later that assuming the dragon spoke English was a fairly big assumption to make.

Apparently, however, the dragon did, although it seemed more interested in talking to Merlin than Gwaine. "I see you brought your champion," it said, its voice a match for Merlin's as it rolled through the night. Gwaine wondered if Hunith could possibly be sleeping through this; if people throughout the valley were rolling over in their beds, squinting at their clocks, wondering what had disturbed their sleep.

"I did," Merlin replied. "Figured you might as well wish us both Happy Christmas, since you seemed so set on it."

"You wished me to be more respectful of your customs," the dragon said. "And it appears that visiting kin on the twenty-fifth of December is indeed one of your customs."

"I only wanted you to stop eating our sheep, and you know it."

"In that case, you should have chosen your words with greater care. I am often astonished that you do not." 

The dragon thrust its head forward, filling Gwaine's vision. Rather than fixating on details like the size of each individual scale (larger than Gwaine's head) or the length of the nearest incisor (much, _much_ larger than Gwaine's head), Gwaine looked at Merlin. He had his hands in his pockets, and a look of utter long-suffering on his face.

"I'm never certain if he's lonely, or just likes messing me about, or both," Merlin said.

Gwaine decided to put aside the issue of a dragon paying holiday calls and the motives involved therein. A word had caught his attention. He said, "Champion?"

"He always talks like that," Merlin said, shrugging. "Comes with being as old as the hills, I reckon."

The dragon flexed its wings, as if it heard that cheap shot about its age, and didn't care for it. "What would you have it called, warlock? Does this man not swear to you with his body, his words, and his life?"

"Yes," Gwaine shouted, before Merlin could frown and say something like, "That's not your business," or "It doesn't work like that anymore." Something that meant, "I don't know." Again, Gwaine shouted, "Yes, I'm for all of that."

"Er, Gwaine?" Merlin wasn't quite frowning, but his eyes were wide and shocked in the moonlight. "Maybe you haven't read enough fairy stories, but making promises to magical beings is a bit dicey," he said. "Consequences if you break them. Stuff like that." 

Gwaine stepped close to Merlin. It meant turning his back on the dragon, but that was all right; there was nothing to be afraid of under this shining sky, neither behind him nor in front of him. "Good job I don't intend on breaking any, then," he said. He nudged his lips up to Merlin's cold ear. "Besides, I think I made them a long time ago, I just forgot to let the magical being know." 

"Well then," Merlin said, breaking into a smile. "Should be all right." He drew Gwaine into a kiss that seemed dangerously likely to lead to sex in the snow in front of a dragon, if the dragon didn't do the smart thing and fly away first.

Gwaine pulled away first, breathing hard against Merlin's cheek, definitely warm now, definitely all because of Merlin. "This the sort of behaviour you normally get up to in front of your relations?"

"Oh," Merlin said, rubbing his lips together. "No. I'd say not."

"Just checking." Taking Merlin's gloved hand in his own, Gwaine turned back to the dragon. "I hope you don't mind, but we should probably be getting back. Happy Christmas," he shouted.

Hot breath gusted over Gwaine as the dragon swung its head even closer, regarding him with one beady, approving eye. Now that was a shock, and not just because of the dragon; Gwaine was looking at approval writ large, unmistakable. Truly, there was a first time for everything. 

"Yes, Happy Christmas," Merlin echoed. When the dragon answered in kind, its rumble met the stars, and shook the world.


End file.
